Toyota Introducing Miracle Unveils Pint-sized Hybrid Concept Car

Miracle Unveils Pint-sized Hybrid Concept Car By Toyota

DETROIT – Toyota unveiled a new hybrid concept car that is smaller than the Prius and geared toward younger buyers, as part of the Japanese automakers strategy to expand its lineup of hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles.

Toyota's plans for its future hybrid offensive were announced on Monday at the Detroit auto show, beginning with a new FT-CH concept.

Toyota showed off the FT-CH compact car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Monday. The company also confirmed plans to badge future hybrids with the Prius name, expanding the Prius brand into an entire family of hybrid vehicles.
Toyota FT-CH concept ca
A production version of the FT-CH could be sold under the Prius name, Toyota said.


"The strategy is still taking shape and obviously it will require additional models to qualify as a family," said Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, a division of Toyota Motor Corp.

Toyota said the FT-CH is 22 inches shorter than the Prius and is lighter and more fuel efficient than the existing hybrid. The car was designed to appeal to younger buyers and was inspired by the retro style of early 8-bit video games popular during the 1980s, the company said.

Toyota said the car — which, as a concept vehicle, has no official time line for going on sale to the public — underscores the automaker's strategy to sell a wider variety of hybrids, battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles over the next several years. Hybrids run alternately on batteries and gasoline.

Priuses would be marketed together to save on advertising costs, but there could be up to three models. It costs more than $100 million to launch a model name and win awareness with buyers, he said.

It also plans to offer plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars starting in model-year 2012 and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in 2015. Toyota has not decided whether the all-electric cars will be marketed as Priuses.

"It's much more efficient to market 300,000 or 400,000 vehicles under one brand name than it is to spend the dollars to market two or three model names," he said.

Toyota said it plans to sell 1 million hybrids per year globally in the early part of this decade by launching eight new hybrids over the next few years. It also plans to offer plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars starting in model-year 2012 and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in 2015 in its global markets.

The FT-CH, as a concept vehicle, has no official sales or production schedule.

Toyota recently launched a global demonstration program of its plug-in hybrid technology involving 600 Prius plug-ins. Starting early this year, Toyota is sending 150 plug-in Priuses powered with lithium-ion batteries — in contrast to the bulkier nickel-metal hydride batteries that currently power hybrids — to the U.S. for testing and demonstration.

Yoshi Inaba, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor North America, told reporters Monday he was optimistic about 2010 sales after a dismal 2009 for the automaker and the industry.

Inaba expects U.S. sales industry wide to rise to about 11.5 million this year after dropping to 10.4 million in 2009, and more growth is expected in 2011 and 2012. He predicted that Toyota's market share in the U.S. — 17 percent last year — will be steady or rise.